


Blood Honey

by laudanum_and_wine



Series: Til Death, Only Longer [2]
Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice (TV 1989), Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Human Beetlejuice, Mildly Dubious Consent, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:08:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22679239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laudanum_and_wine/pseuds/laudanum_and_wine
Summary: Sequel to "The Cracks in your Heart" : Lydia and Betelgeuse are learning how to be Adult Humans together now that they're married, but mostly they're getting laid on every available surface.Another warning: Betelgeuse is some kind of trifecta nightmare from all media sources, because I love the complexity of every one of those, but I'm leaning hard on the movie.
Relationships: Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Series: Til Death, Only Longer [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631473
Comments: 31
Kudos: 102





	1. Chapter 1

She was halfway in the door when she saw him tense up. He'd been upside down, walking along the ceiling drinking a gravity defying glass of whiskey, and froze dead still when he saw her.

"Lydia," his voice was very low, even for him.

"Yes dear?" She feigned innocence, smiling as she hung up her keys and purse. He seemed unamused, dropping from the vaulted ceiling and setting his glass down on the table right next to her purse. The door locked behind her with a click.

"What did I say about that skirt?" His hand grazed through her hair.

"This skirt?"

"Yeah."

"This skirt that you love?"

"Uh-huh."

"Hm," she paused to think about it, looking down and fiddling with the hem of said skirt. "Oh shoot, I remember. You said that if I wore this tiny black velvet skirt out again…"

He crowded closer to her when she paused, hands sliding along the velvet without pressure, dancing up the buttons of her shirt.

"You said I wouldn't make it to a flat surface," she finished, just as his hand gripped her throat. She tipped her head back, savored the feeling of his whole palm warm against her skin, and asked, "Was that a promise, or a threat?"

He held her throat still as his other hand ripped her blouse open, "Yes."

She felt her thighs shake, and wrapped her hand around his wrist loosely, pressing her thumb between his tendons feeling for his slow pulse. He paused, he always paused when she did this, looking into her eyes. For just a moment she felt his gaze soften, saw him think it, think three words he almost never said, and she melted. She leaned forward, all trust and adoration, then swallowed like a whisper against his palm. 

He fell back into action fast, spinning her around and tugging her shirt off. She gasped as he pulled her around, hands cupping her breasts and pulling her backward, flush to his chest. She could feel the length of him pressing hard against her ass, and she ground back against him.

"Did you think you'd get away with it?" He asked, all sandpaper and whiskey breath.

"No, sir!" 

He smiled into her hair, "So you knew you'd get caught?"

"Wait. Yes?" She giggled.

"So a real punishment would be me, oh say, letting you go and rubbing one out in the shower?" His hands were loose now.

"Wait fuck, how is this backfiring? I was trying to seduce you!" She wiggled for a moment before he jerked her back roughly.

"Ah, I see. You little slut," he tugged her down until they were both on their knees on the rough carpet. 

She moaned, leaning back into him again, just causing him to push her forward to catch herself on her hands.

"Stay," he barked, and she froze there. After a solid two seconds she shifted, grinding herself against his hips. He slapped her ass once, more noise than pain, "I said stay."

She stayed, waiting, trying to be good. 

After maybe a minute of stillness, she swore she could hear him smirking. His hands finally moved, tracing her hips as he leaned back. One hand gently spread her knees, while the other ran up the back of her thigh, ghosting upward to push her skirt up to her hips. The velvet slid and slid and-

"Holy shit, Lydia you kinky bitch, no panties?" His voice was too excited, breaking the tension he'd worked so hard for. "Oh god, babes, please tell me you didn't just take them off before you came home. Please, fuck, tell me you had to think about this all day, every time you crossed you legs you knew I was gonna-"

"All day, I've been wanting you to pin me to this carpet all day, Beej," she bucked her hips back, felt his fingers brushing her slick pussy.

He pressed two fingers into her, wiggling them inside her for a breath while she squirmed, before pulling them out and licking them. Lydia huffed at the sound of an exaggerated slurp. She felt him move and was unsurprised when she tasted herself on his fingers a moment later. She moaned appreciatively, knowing what it would do to him.

Betelgeuse loosened his belt and pants with the fingers not in his wife's mouth, slowed occasionally by her hips rolling back into his own. Frustrated he recovered both hands and was finally able to shove pants and boxers down to slide the head of his cock across her slick outer lips.

"Beej," she moaned, trying to squirm back onto his length. "Please, god, please fuck me! I've wanted you all day!"

"All day, hm?"

"Yes, all day! In the gallery, in the car, at lunch. Fuck, I had to sneak to the bathroom at get myself off before I drove home!"

"Lydia!" He gasped dramatically, sliding slowly into her. "You jerked off thinking of me just an hour ago and didn't even call me?"

"Who said I was thinking of you?" She joked.

With a snarl he gripped her hips and slamming hard into her, leaving her panting against the carpet.

"You think you're so cute," he punctuated each word with a thrust, then paused deep inside her, to lean over her back. "You're just a brat, Lydia."

She was pushing back, feeling herself clench around him, savoring the dull ache of him being too deep too fast. He rolled his hips, sliding that much deeper, pressing against the back of her. She didn't even try to contain the animal whine, holding still against him as her nails dug desperately into the carpet. They held, both panting quietly, each feeling the other twitch and move with their breath.

"Beej," she moaned finally. "Please."

He snapped his hips into her roughly, she cried out, and he immediately repeated the motion. Within a few seconds she was pounding into her, fingers bruising her hips trying to keep her from moving. 

She had one forearm against the carpet, forehead to the ground, trying to press back and failing, "Fuck, god, yes!" 

"So fucking good, so god damn filthy for me," he was muttering between breaths. "You gonna come for me?"

She made a high pitched noise, shifting forward, and he followed her, knees dragging on the carpet.

"Come on Lyds," he wanted to watch her fall apart. On the next shift he felt a shock, a stab in his knee, and paused.

"What?" She panted, looking back.

He ignored her, shifting to bend that leg, weight on his foot and other knee, and suddenly he felt so much deeper send she was overheated and- The change in angle threw them both over the edge within seconds, Lydia shouting into the carpet and her perfect angelic blood curdling scream sending him right after her, groaning as he filled her in three quick thrusts.

Eventually she shifted, getting her hands under her as he pulled out. 

"I love that fucking skirt so much," he sat back, supporting his weight on his arms.

"Are you bleeding?"

"Yeah," he glanced down at his bloody knee. "Carpet nail."

"What-" She laughed. "You just kept going?"

"What, you want me to stop fucking you just because of a little blood?" He shrugged and tugged his pants back up, uncaring of any damage.

"I mean," she flipped onto her back, and from here he could see the red irritation on her arms and knees and one cheek where the carpet had rubbed her raw. "No. I guess."

He crawled over and nuzzled against her neck for a moment, "You want take out Chinese food for dinner?"

"Oh my god yes."

His sluggish pulse still managed to make him bleed enough to stain the hallway carpet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, just throwing you straight into it, here's some porn, enjoy! The plan for this series has literally no plot, at all, so don't hope for actual character development because I WILL let you down. Also enjoy the vague Cobwebs and Stripes reference and go read that if you haven't yet, it's AMAZING.  
> https://www.deviantart.com/cobwebandstripes
> 
> Crits/comments/corrections keep me writing, so consider leaving one even if it's just a vague "stop using semicolons."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A non-explicit chapter about birthdays. I know, I'm so sorry.

"You need a birthday," she tapped her pen against the paper in front of her while she mused.

"Winter, thirteen-fourteen."

"What?" She looked over with confusion all over her face. He raised an eyebrow and closed the refrigerator, cold beer already frosting in his hand.

"The year of someone's lord thirteen hundred and fourteen? After Christmas but before the first thaw?" Betelgeuse shrugged, popping open the beer with his bare hand then opening the freezer and chucking the bottle cap in carelessly. 

"I hate when you do that."

"What, point out that he's not MY lord?" He closed the freezer. She just glared at the refrigerator then at him. Unaffected, he sipped his beer.

"I was just thinking you should pick a day of the year. In case some form or something asks for it," she pointed down with the pen, to the graduate school application she'd been filling out.

"Our anniversary," he placed a soft kiss on her hairline as he walked past, "July thirteenth. It's kinda when I was born, right?"

"I mean, yeah, but don't you want a separate day, just for your birthday?"

"Why would I?" He shrugged as though that settled it, and walked into the sliding glass door with a thump and clack. She stifled a giggle, watching him blink, dripping sloshed beer down his front. "How am I still not used to opening fuckin DOORS?" He'd slid the door open, slipped outside, and closed it so that his shouted final word was muffled.

+++

"What if we make a friend and they ask what your birthday is?"

"I will tell them," he swerved between lanes, arm and face half out the window to shout at a grandmother in a van "to FUCK OFF!!!"

After a moment and a burst of speed he finished, "Beside, what fuckin friends?"

+++

"Consider this," she scraped a forkful of chocolate cake off his plate. "A lie is easiest to remember when it's close to the truth, right?"

He pulled his cake closer to his chest and eyed her suspiciously, "...Right."

"So picking a date and celebrating it now will make it simpler than trying to come up with a lie on the spot when you DO need it," her fork was gesturing beyond her lemon cheesecake slice, well into his death-by-chocolate territory. He pushed her fork back with his own.

"Except," he pointed out, forcing her fork down to smush into her cheesecake, "I don't plan on ever needing that lie."

"It's like insurance."

"Which we don't have, and is a racket," he gestured with his fork, cutting her off. "And I would know, I sold it: it's bullshit."

"Just because you personally sold bullshit doesn't make it all bullshit. You just happen to be a bullshit salesman," she said, half expecting the smug self-satisfied smile she got in reply.

+++

"What did you tell Jaques?" She asked him without looking away from the sunset.

"About?"

"Your birthday," she clarified, leaning into his hand as he tucked some windblown hair back behind her ear.

"Hasn't come up. Don't think he'd be brave enough to ask," he shifted back down, resting on his elbows in the warm beach sand. 

"Why?"

"Mighta kinda turned into a multi-headed snake demon one time in front of him," he waved a hand dismissively, just a wiggle from the elbow down.

"Jesus, is that why he was so awkward last time he brought Ginger over? I thought he'd just had a sex dream about me," she mused.

"Oh that mighta still been it: when he got through his sixth shot of post-trauma-whiskey it occurred to him ta ask if you knew, and I might'a implied some kinky shit."

She slapped his arm, only half gentle.

"What? It was true shit!"

+++

"I have one more thing for you to consider," Lydia pulled herself out of the pool, all pale curves and black lycra. Her voice had gotten his attention, and he sat up a bit in the chaise lounge, pulling his eyes away from the late summer stars.

"Whaa?" If asked he might have blamed his less than eloquent response on distraction, watching his wife gently turn to wring water from her hair, body literally glistened in the moonlight. 

She was turning, running a towel down one leg than up the other, graceful hands plucking at her swimsuit. The lights in the water lit her from behind, an ethereal blue glow on her skin like electricity, and Betelgeuse found his mouth dry despite the half empty bottle next to him. 

She didn't reply immediately, instead walking over and sitting daintily beside him on the deck chair. She ran a hand slowly down his arm until their fingers were interlaced, hers actually colder than his own for once, then she smiled.

"Birthday sex."

He didn't react for a moment, then asked, "What day is it?"

"September fifth."

"Well fuck, wouldn't you know it: it's my birthday," he pulled her down and she barely had time to laugh before he was kissing her and peeling her out of that swimsuit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe I used Google to research more for this chapter than any other? Dates are hard, and the timeline for the Black Plague is wonky AF if you don't assume BJ's 637 year age to be a POSTmortem count.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey love, so good to see you, missed you somethin' awful, have you been home all day?" Betelgeuse had speed-walked into the kitchen, finding her cleaning the sink.

"Yeah," she scrubbed at a particularly tough stain.

"I need beer."

"There's beer in the fridge."

She felt rather than heard him flailing around the kitchen behind her with grand dramatic arm gestures, she knew this mood and had seen it enough to picture it clearly. 

"DIFFERENT BEER," he half shouted the words in a strangled voice.

"Okay," Lydia rinsed the cleaning products off her hands and turned to face him. "So go to the store?"

"Come with!" And then he was in front of her, gently tugging the hand towel from her grip to toss it behind himself carelessly and smile at her.

"Why?" She batted her eyelashes back, at this point being intentionally disinterested in his mania.

"Because it makes a better alibi if you're there," he growled, then his eyes finally went wide.

She smiled, breathing deeply through her nose once, then nodded, "Okay, I'll drive then."

+++

She climbed back into the car, sipping her smoothie and pushing her seat back. Betelgeuse had his seat tipped back flat and was breathing easily enough to seem asleep. They had wandered slowly through the grocery store for a half hour, picking up everything they could think they might need just to be seen and kill time. And three cases of beer.

"You gonna tell me what happened?" She tried to relax the way he had.

"Keep in mind that you can't yell, since we're in public."

"Great start."

"Mighta kinda robbed a bank with Jaques."

Lydia sucked on her smoothie long enough to develop a slight brain freeze, and was silent while she aggressively slapped the steering wheel until it passed. He just watched out of one eye in silence.

"Okay. Alright. Where's Jaques?"

"Probably still driving back from Sacramento," he half shrugged. "I led security off long enough to see him get away, then teleported home."

"You can still teleport?"

"Not well, I ended up in Concord on the first try," he actually sounded pissed off about it.

"From Sacramento?!?"

He didn't reply.

She opened the car door, picking up her half drunk smoothie and the still full one she'd gotten him, and walked them to the dumpster. He was pouting when she got back, but wisely didn't complain about it.

"Why?"

"Ginger needed tuition, Jaques needed help, I'm still the ghost-with-the-most."

"You're not yet, but you will be and FAST if I find out you tried shit like that again. Did you know you could still teleport?"

"I mighta winged it a little," he sat up, pulling the seat up with a ratcheting noise. "Honey, babes, darlin', you know I live for adventure." He smiled at his turn of phrase.

"That's not clever, Beej. I'm not done with human you yet," she glared. "I want another thirtyish years, at least!"

"Eternity isn't good enough, she wants eternity PLUS being middle aged," he joked, and ran a hand up her leg to squeeze her thigh gently. 

"Yeah, jackass: I reserve the right to watch you get fat and old. Don't deny me my marital right of watching you turn into a geezer," she was at least smiling now, remembering that the stakes weren't exactly high.

"The way I drink? You got a decade, max."

"That's it, no more beer."

+++

"What the hell are you eating?" Lydia had looked up from her book as Betelgeuse walked out of the kitchen and the words were out of her mouth before she even realized it.

"A salad..?" He paused, confused.

She didn't reply, just blinking and going back to her book. His eyes rolled around the room, looking for an explanation, before he shrugged and took his bowl to the kitchen table. Lydia kept reading the same paragraph over and over, trying to make sense of the words, but it just wasn't going to happen.

She sat down across from him, book left far behind on the sofa, and watched him eat. He slowed, pausing with moth open and bite suspended on fork in midair. 

"Hello."

"Why are you eating salad?" She sounded suspicious. 

"I was hungry, what are you the fuckin' food police? Am I not allowed to eat your precious vegetables? Do I need to ask you permission-"

"Is that water?" She cut him off, pointing at his glass.

"No it's sixteen ounces of vodka," he had dropped his fork to cross his arms and sit back. "Listen, I was thinking about what you said-" 

She cut him off again, standing to walk around the table and stand next to him. He'd paused, and now was stopped from resuming his train of thought because was running her hands up his chest, fiddling with his collar, and finally leaning in to press a gentle kiss to his lips. Before he could even snake a hand down to squeeze her ass, she'd slipped her tongue into his mouth and turned the kiss into something filthy, hands on his neck and in his hair, pressing her body against him.

"Thank you," she pulled back long enough to say, then smiled and pulled him up out of his chair and toward the livingroom sofa.

"I don't get to finish lunch?" 

"I'm on the menu," Lydia pushed him to sit on the couch and straddled his lap to resume kissing him before he could say something to ruin her joke. She shifted, rolling her hips to feel him just beginning to grow hard against her. She smiled against his lips, then was slipping out of his lap to kneel between his legs, tugging his zipper down.

"Have I ever mentioned," her voice was light, as though she wasn't reaching into his pants, fingers wrapping around his cock, "that there's a trick to my being able to get you all the way down my throat?"

He made a strangled noise as she licked his length, and tried to ask what the trick was and if it involved actual magic. He wasn't entirely hard in her hand yet but she didn't seem upset.

"Well," she started, then slid her lips down to meet the circle of her thumb and index finger, sucking his whole cock into her mouth and rolling her tongue along the underside of him. His hips jerked, both hands gripping the pillows beside him, and he babbled something that sounded like her name but too low pitched for human ears.

She pulled her hair back and continued her thought, "I have to get you all the way down my throat before you get too big to swallow around."

He blinked down at her trying to remember what she was saying, but before he could clarify his thoughts her mouth was around him again, and she really was taking all of him down, head bobbing and hand pumping what little she couldn't swallow. Within a minute she was carefully peeling her fingers away, nose brushing his skin and she drooled and finally swallowed thickly around the head of his cock. He made a noise that definitely wasn't a whine but was probably whine-adjacent. She pulled back slowly and he watched inch after inch of his length slide out of her mouth in a moment more pornographic than anything he'd seen on video.

"Might help that you've been, shall we say, within standard human proportions lately?"

"I'm sorry, standard? Did you say standard?" He was trying to catch up, beginning to feel like he should be offended. 

"Oh don't worry, I like my human-Beej just fine."

"Just fine? Come here and I'll show you human," he started, but she had her warm tongue pressed against the base of his cock and he lost his thought.

Lydia stroked his length a few times, smiling up at him like she'd just done something very smart that he'd missed, then slid him back into her mouth and did something with her tongue-

"Lyds, I'm gonna-"

But she just hummed around him and swallowed again like he knew she would with or without a warning. His fingers spasmed too hard for living flesh, tearing the pillow he gripped. He was just aware enough to notice that too many voices were saying her name overlapping like an awful cacophonous choir, then he saw stars for just a heartbeat and gasped in an utterly human climax that left Lydia swallowing and smiling proudly.

"It's been a bit since I heard you use that voice," She stood up, and booped his nose jokingly, "Go eat lunch." 

"Oh, babes," his voice had too many layers like he knew she loved, which seemed to distract her from the long tail snaking around her legs. "I plan on it."

She was flat on her back on the sofa before she could scream, though scream she did, dissolving into a giggle at the end. A dozen hands with red tipped fingers reached out from between sofa cushions to pin her in place.

"No I swear I heard you talking shit, something about 'standard human' just then. And I gotta say, wife of mine, love of my existence, that seemed like it was a challenge," he growled, just making her wiggle excitedly in his grip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know, y'all. Just got stuck on this chapter and had to post it and MOVE ON with life, jesus.
> 
> Crits/comments/corrections are amazing!


	4. Chapter 4

"Do you have any plans in the next few weeks?" Lydia aimed for a casual air and obviously failed based on the way Betelgeuse's head snapped to look at her. She paused a beat and rolled her eyes, "Other than olympic marathons of sex with your wife."

"Nope! Why?" He was up on his elbows and smiling, tangled in her sheets as she got dressed.

"I have a surprise for you," she shrugged into a shirt.

"I love surprises from you," he said it so genuinely that she paused, turning to look back at him with her shirt still around her neck. 

He was staring at her tits, not a trace of shame present.

She rolled her eyes and tugged the shirt down, but was quickly pulled back by a coil of serpent wrapped loosely around her waist.

"Beej, come on, I have to be downstairs soon, it's already nine in the morning," she pulled his hands away from her breasts, which he just replaced with other hands. "Don't you want me to plan our wedding?"

"You, me, I'll juice you up a dress, we go to Vegas," his voice was rasping. "Come on yourself: how many more epic rounds of monster sex do you want before I'm a boring old human for the rest of your life?"

She huffed a laugh in his arms, but did turn around, helping him strip her out of the clothing she'd only just managed to out on.

"Not human, never," and she gave him a filthy kiss to prove the point.

+++

Several days and a quick wedding later, she was up and out of bed before he could drag her back, and he was getting dressed as she paced the room.

"I know we've been working on communication and shit, so I'm asking a dumb question here rather than just ASSUMING the worst: why are you packing a bag? I know I'm annoying, but come on, we've only been married for like twelve hours," his tone was light, but his grin more than a touch manic.

"You're so cute when you're insecure," she flipped shut her suitcase and latched it, then flipped open another one and pulled out a slightly crumpled button down shirt. "Will this fit you?" 

"...Yeah."

"Good, then you're packed for our honeymoon. We leave in an hour."

"Repeat that?" He wiggled a pinkie finger in his ear and blinked at her.

"Well I thought about it and realized that you," she poked his chest, "have never been on a roadtrip. So we have two options: we can either go on an epic roadtrip honeymoon across the United States, or we can not. Those are the options, really, and actually if you like being around me you only have one option because I'm going."

He blinked once, then seemed to be distracted by how satisfying blinking was now that he was more human-adjacent. After a solid thirty seconds he snapped back to the conversation, "Wait, we leave in an hour? I thought you wanted to tell yer family, that. You know," he wiggled his ring finger, "Married."

"I thought about that? And I decided to take a page out of your book."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna be a fucking coward about it."

He glared at her, then shrugged, "They're your family, do what you want." 

She finished sealing up the bags, checked then double checked the bathroom, then stood by the door. 

"Okay. Okay. This will actually be good. And fun. And a little hilarious," she was definitely not psyching herself up. It was nine in the morning and everyone living and dead was probably up and more or less functional. She wasn't scared.

"Okay, I open this door, you take the bags to the car. Wait. Can you send them to the car?"

Betelgeuse walked to the window from which the car could be seen. He stared at the bags, then the car, then the bags and snapped. The bags were gone, and with a very quiet thunk she heard them drop onto the roof of the car.

"Aim was about ten feet too high. Hope there wasn't anything fragile in those."

"Okay, well then," she opened the bedroom door and paused. 

"You sure you wanna do this, this way?" He asked.

"Positive." 

"Want a hand?"

"Yes."

+++

Downstairs Delia was just pouring herself a cup of coffee, while Charles munched at some toast and the Maitlands were sitting in the sunshine, talking about what they were planning on doing today, which involved Adam working on a wood carving.

The sound of Lydia's door opening was almost too quiet to hear, but Delia noticed it, wondering what the girl was up to today after she'd been gone almost twenty four hours the day before. The barely hushed stage whispers and laughter told her quite a bit.

"Lydia?" Charles stood, tea in hand, walking to the kitchen doorway and followed after a moment by Barbara. 

"It's nothing dear-" Delia tried, but Charles walked past her. She had just a moment to share a commiserating glance with Adam before she heard a muffled voice snicker-

"Showtime!"

"Lydia?!" Charles was barreling through the door into the livingroom, and Barbara had forgone the door altogether and walked through the wall next to him. By the time Delia and Adam were through the doorway, all four concerned parents were startled to see the living room festooned with ballons and a banner reading "Surprise!" above the front door. A laughing Lydia was waving at them from over the shoulder of a man no one recognized. Her good humor prevented anyone from being worried, until Lydia popped her head back through the front door from outside. 

"Love you all, I have my cellphone, starting that roadtrip!" She chirped the words fast then ducked out the door with one last shout, "Goingonmyhoneymoon, bye!"

"What…" Barbra threw open the door first giving all four of them a perfect view of Lydia peeling out of the driveway, and a blonder and cleaner than normal Betelgeuse waving from the passenger seat and cackling. Just when Delia thought the situation might be salvageable, the man did something with his hand and stings of cans began to clatter behind the car. Just like that she knew why her stepdaughter had been scarce and giddy all week.

"Just… Married?" Barbara read the words off the back windshield as the car grew smaller and looked curiously at Charles. It took them both a moment before looks of shocked horror appeared on their twin faces.

Delia sipped her coffee and let Adam attempt to get his wife to sit and "breathe" which almost made her snort out loud. The banner above them waved in the breeze from the open door. 

"What? I knew he wasn't gone, was hanging around. Sure, they're friends but… What just-?" Charles shut the door and blinked at the ghostly couple.

"I knew they were, uh, close," Adam said, then shrugged when Barbara made an outraged noise. "What, you thought they were just friends? Seriously? Beet- Er. That guy?"

"They've been sleeping together for ages," Delia waved a hand and walked back into the kitchen to refill her coffee. "You two can yell at her tonight, I'm sure she'll call to let you. Now Adam, did you want to take a look at the wood working tools I have? I'll bring them in from the garage so you can see if anything suits you."

Charles and Barbara were left alone, and after a moment he sat on the floor beside her.

"Well, at least…" he started, then trailed off.

"She's happy?" Barbara tried.

"Right, yes, at least she's happy."

She patted his arm consolingly as he sipped his tea surrounded by balloons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some fluffy crap, I guess. Delia being a Good Mom and in the know made me smile, and honestly I want Lydia's four parents to get along and be family.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Nth of the honeymoon and Beej is having feelings about things. Shitty crappy human feelings that he's less that thrilled with. Lydia, being far to smart for him, makes him talk about it.

He'd just parked the car in the early evening glow of sunset, and exhaled deeply. With a sigh Lydia unclipped her seatbelt, twisted sideways, and dropped her head into his lap on the bench seat. She shifted her legs to kick mindlessly out the window. 

"I can just sleep here," she sighed, closing her eyes with long fluttering black lashes.

"Yeah, but I can't make you scream my name here," he joked, jostling her as he too unclipped his seatbelt and opened the car door.

"Not true," she held up a finger, eyes still closed. "Why just the other day-"

"Do you want me to prove you right, right here, in the parking lot? Or do you want me to get us a hotel room?" He slid out of the car and stood, letting her think it over.

"Get a room. Mention we're on our honeymoon so they put us far away from anyone else, yeah?" 

He huffed, shut the door, and was gone for a few long minutes. When he returned it was with a jingling key.

"Rise and shine, Lyds. Let's get unpacked and I'll find us dinner."

By the time she'd crawled upright and found her purse under the seat, he'd manhandled their suitcases to the door and was unlocking it. She stumbled in after him and face planted onto the mattress. 

"Okay, I can sleep here." 

He pulled out her bag of toiletries from her suitcase, and his toothbrush in a ziplock that was the sum total of his toiletries, and left it all on the counter of the hallway sink. When he was done, he flopped down on the bed next to her. 

"Hungry?"

"Starving."

"I saw a diner near where we got off the highway."

"You just want pancakes for dinner again," she rolled her head to the side to look at him.

"Fuck yeah I do: I've only had functional tastebuds for a week but, I know, but I already think I've got a new favorite food."

"You're gonna get fat."

"I know, it's gonna be GREAT." 

She smiled at his utter lack of self consciousness, and dragged herself upright, "Okay, pancakes it is. I'll drive."

+++

"I can't believe you didn't even want to TRY the sourdough pancakes," she rolled her eyes as she unlocked the hotel room door.

"The name said sour, why would I eat that?"

"You eat so much sugar, your teeth will rot."

"How about you give me some sugar then," he grinned at her and closed the door behind them, then locked it.

"You are such a perv," she was looping her arms around him despite her words. 

"Sure, but you like it."

She heard the TV turn on while she was using the bathroom, heard him laughing and brushing his teeth. By the time she'd brushed her own teeth, though, he was fast asleep and the first set of late night talkshow guests were just being interviewed. She smiled as she crawled into the bed, pushing too many pillows to the side by the light of the screen, and kissed his cheek. He woke up enough to pull her closer to him as she flicked off the TV set.

+++

Lydia woke up a little disoriented, trying to determine why exactly she had woken up, and where she was. She felt familiar hands on her waist, felt the warm breath she'd just gotten used to, and the smell of plants and dirt Beej always had even now. She could tell her shirt had slid up because she distinctly felt a half-chilled tongue tracing up the flat plane between her breasts. 

"Beej," She sighed his name to let him know she'd woken and ran her fingers through his hair.

He hummed against her skin, not responding. His hands spread her legs gently, and his soft wet mouth left sloppy kisses on her skin, lower and lower until without fanfare he was rolling circles around her clit. 

She couldn't convince her eyes to open again, and let herself liquefy into the mattress as his fingers gently parted her folds.

"That feels so good," she purred, and scratched her nails through his hair. "I think I'm still dreaming."

He bit her inner thigh playfully, then replaced his fingers with his tongue. The softness and heat of his tongue working shallowly into her pussy was languid and delicious, she felt boneless and floating even before his fingers began to work her clit gently.

"Fuck, Beej…"

His other hand gripped her hip, tracing circles against the bone with his thumb. Every time she bucked or bent under his attention, he just gently chased after her, never slowing down or speeding up his pace. She was biting the flesh of her arm, panting, and when she glanced down he just happened to glance up at her, eyes black and patient. She came hard, and he never changed his pace until she her muscles relaxed again under his hands.

He licked his lips obscenely, then crawled up the bed to wrap his arms around her silently. She reached down, to run a hand along his length through his boxers, but he just gathered up her arms and held her.

"I'm good, just wanna hold you," his voice was rough but not upset, so she let it go. She didn't even know when sleep took her.

+++

When she woke up again light was filtering into the room from behind thick cheap curtains. She stretched, and refocused her eyes on the foreground, blinking sleepily at the skin of her lovers ribcage. 

He was half sitting up against the headboard, unlit cigarette in his mouth, one hand resting on the pillow above her head and the other spinning a lighter distractedly. 

She leaned in and pressed a kiss to the skin in front of her, then turned to blink up at him.

"Good morning."

He sniffed rather than reply, but lifted the hand near her head to gently brush out her curls. She let the silence linger for a few minutes as she stretched and threw an arm around his hips. After some time, she finally sat up in bed and pulled back the blanket, rising to straddle his hips and pluck the cigarette from his mouth to drop on the bedside table. 

"What's up buttercup?" She asked with a half smile.

He smiled back reflexively, and set the lighter down.

"Frustrated," he finally admitted.

"Sexually?" She walked two fingers up his chest with a coy smile.

"No, which is fuckin' weird as shit."

Lydia sat back, resting her weight evenly on her own heels and his thighs. 

"So, my dear, my love, my husband: how is being half human going for you?" And that must have been it, because he folded his arms and creased his brow and looked away. She reached over for the cigarette and lighter, pulled the ashtray to the edge of the table, then lit up. After a few drags and a minute of silence she held the cigarette up to his lips and he took it without much grumbling. He inhaled deeply, almost coughed, and ashed the cigarette gently into the tray.

"I don't know what's wrong and you're about as emotionally communicative as a constipated racoon," she kept going when he opened his mouth. "But I can imagine that since for me getting married has been a bit of a change, for you it's probably exacerbated by being human for the first time in centuries."

He glared, then blew out a long stream of smoke that wriggled and snapped like a sandworm.

"Human adjacent," she amended. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Should you, maybe, so it doesn't fester and make me feel unappreciated and unloved?"

"Fuck," he handed her the cigarette and rubbed his face with both hands once they were free. She stubbed the butt out in the ashtray, and ran her fingers up his arms to gently peel his hands from his face.

"Hey."

"I just didn't think it'd be like this," he blinked up at her. 

"Well, I mean it is all temporary," she joked, trying to sooth him.

"I'm not enough."

She was silent a long moment before she found her voice, "What."

"Sometimes I try to do something, throw my voice, grow too many teeth, and it's like," his hands opened and closed a few times. "It's like nothin's there. And I guess I just don't feel much like the man ya fell head over heels for."

"You did turn into a snake and chase that bratty kid yesterday."

"Yeah, but I couldn't even stay conscious long enough to seduce ya last night!" He huffed and pulled his hands away from hers to cross his arms, "I'm not myself and I don't know why you'd settle for this human bullshit. If yer gonna be with a stinkin vanilla breather you could'a done better and… I fucked that up for ya."

"I would've married you if you'd been a human, dumb ass," she tried to sound sympathetic but landed closer to dry. "You could have been some one-eyed carney working at a shitty county fair with shady safety history, and you would still have made me laugh and I would still have run off with you and my family would definitely still hate you. Like, for sure hate you."

He glared.

"Last night was good, just you and me, and both of us were boring and vanilla and human. And I really enjoyed it," she scooted further up his legs, until she could easily lean in to kiss him. "Like, really really enjoyed it. Would like to show you how much I enjoyed it." She gently pried his crossed arms apart and guided his hands to her ass. His glare was fading. 

"Come on, let me show you how much fun vanilla can be," she rolled her hips and he rolled his eyes.

"Fine, if it's good enough for the Maitlands-" he joked, and she rolled off him back to her side of the bed.

"Nope, I'm done here, you said the magic un-sexy words!" She was laughing as she spoke, and he rolled on top of her and pinned her down gently.

"Hold still damn you, hey! I said be still, ya brat!" His last words were growled, just a normal human growl, but she stilled. He must have seen something in her face or eyes, something that gave away how incredibly hot his command had been, and he paused.

"Oh," he said, and then he smiled a very devious smile that went straight to her animal brain like the world's fastest aphrodisiac. "Oh I see."

They missed the hotel checkout by an hour, and ended up staying another night, leaving for a breakfast of sourdough pancakes only well after the sun had set.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honesty time: I fuckin lo e sourdough pancakes guys? So much. So so so so SO much. And I'm pretty gluten intolerant, so nada mas for me. Which means they are the gilded apple unicorn food of all my fics.
> 
> Aside from that, MAN, imagine the ego hit Beej must take if being human limits him in any way. Man pain and drama in the extreme. 
> 
> Crits/comments/corrections are my bread and butter! Well. My gluten free bread and vegan butter. /sigh


	6. Chapter 6

It was late Friday afternoon, and Lydia was leaving the photography studio on campus when she got the call on her cellphone. She stared hard at the number. The 916 area code made her blink: who the hell did she know in that area? So, of course, she paused outside the building to answer. 

"Hello?"

"Lydia?" The voice was passingly familiar. 

"Yeah. Who's calling?"

"Hey Lydia, it's Jaques," the voice stalled out for a moment before plunging on. "Alright, I'm doing Betel a favor here, and- This is awkward as fuck. Okay, yeah, so we might have been up to no good and scaring some teenagers and- shut up asshole, do you want to be on this call instead? Do you?" The last bit was delivered at half volume to someone else. Jaques voice was too level for it to have been a real emergency. Still-

"Jaques, are you guys in trouble?"

"No! Nope, no, we are in fact very above the level right now. It's just I'm walking around the park with this hundred-something pound python on my shoulders and he's sort of hilariously stuck that way. No dude, it is indeed hilarious, hey! No choking the ride! Uncool!" There was a quiet sort of scuffle on the other line.

"Hold the phone up," Lydia waited a beat then heard nothing, then giggled because that was indeed the only indication she'd get that Jaques was no longer on the line. "Beej, it is indeed hilarious, you're just gonna have to accept that." 

"Fuck you," the words were low and slow, like he'd had a hard time forming them.

"I love you so much, asshole."

"Ew gross," Jaques was back on the line and didn't sound perturbed. "Anyway, can you come get him? We didn't drive, I don't wanna walk home and freak Ginger out. She's not great with snakes and she's already super stressed about how much classes are gonna cost now that her scholarship is gone."

"Shouldn't have said anything about being afraid of snakes in front of him, Jaques."

"Damn… Yeah, he's already plotting, I can see it in his beady eyes. Shit. Anyway, we're at the rose garden?"

"Be there in fifteen," she hung up, checked to be sure the call disconnected, then let herself laugh hysterically for a solid minute before heading to her car. "Oh my god, this is too good. Good start to the weekend."

+++

The click-flash of the Polaroid apparently startled Jaques, though the snake looped over his shoulders was less than surprised.

"I have never been so glad you show up in photos now, Beej."

"I will end you," he managed sliding along the back of the park bench and off of his punk friends neck.

"Have I mentioned that I find your guy's version of flirting really disturbing?" Jaques asked, getting slapped gently in the face with a long tail shortly after as Betelgeuse left his shoulders. 

Lydia sat on the bench beside the gangly man and let her currently-serpentine husband wind his way closer, and he took full advantage of her stillness to twist his way around her throat contentedly. She ran a hand along a loop of him and he sighed, finally relaxed. If he had to be stuck like this at least being around her made him less disgustingly miserable and anxious. Jaques had turned away as though they'd kissed though, which made Beej more than a little smug.

"Terrifying teenagers, hm?" Lydia's tone was light but more than a little unimpressed.

"Yeah, that might've been on me, sorry," Jaques rubbed at his close cropped hair and shrugged. "We had a whole thing where I'd be 'attacked' by my pet snake, blood everywhere. Very Anaconda."

"I don't think boa constrictors normally have rattles, Beej," Lydia joked.

"Also normally not stripped," Jaques added.

Betelgeuse decided not to fight too-long vocal cords and settled for a full body shrug. She swallowed hard against a loop of cold scales and he could feel the heat creeping up her skin, the vaguest sheen of sweat on her even though his weight was cold as ice. He smiled his best snake smile, which would probably be terrifying to anyone but her, and appreciated the jog in her pulse.

"I'm glad you're just one snake this time," she ran a finger over his skull gently, then booped his nose.

"Wait, has this happened before?" Jaques was half watching the couple interact, half fiddling with a pocket knife. He looked both curious and slightly horrified.

"Clones," Betelgeuse did another full body shrug and circled Lydia's neck slowly, just to feel her squirm. "Human, normally."

"You can do that?" Jaques seemed genuinely curious. 

"And not just for the bedroom," the snake's voice was even rougher than his normal tone, and while he was sure his words had pissed Lydia off their effect on Jaques was hilariously worth it.

"And now I'm traumatized," the kid slapped his legs and stood. "Not that I'm not incredibly grateful for you coming to take Betel home, but I've had enough of watching your weird ass foreplay: I'm gonna head out," The man walked towards downtown without looking back.

"You should never have told him about the kinky sex," Lydia glared down at his creepily human eyes. He yawned widely, fangs glistening, too many in number and too thick for even the most venomous snakes. It earned him a shiver, which he enjoyed, but then she was rolling her eyes.

She made him curl up on the floor in the backseat of the car the whole ride home so "no cops would see a live fucking snake in her car." He retaliated by shifting his tail clear under her seat and sliding it up and down her calf seductively while she drove. She must not have minded much since she didn't step on him.

+++

"Sooooo," Lydia trailed off, dropping her purse on the end table and locking the door behind her. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but are you feeling at all bipedal? You weigh a fuckton."

"You calling me fat?" His voice had gotten more human on the ride home, probably because he'd been using it the whole damn drive, chattering about anything at all. Probably trying to prevent her from telling him this was just desserts for scaring kids.

"Yes," she paused, idly petting his belly and she shifted his weight. "Do you want me to leave you on the sofa or..?" 

The decision became moot when he wiggled and managed to half drop to the floor, she staggered to keep him from landing hard, and he repaid her kindness by tripping her and tangling up in her arms and legs. She'd never imagined a snake could leer, but he did with her flat on her back.

"Don't you want to kiss your darling husband after a long day?" He'd looped around her enough to support his weight and lift his head to face-level. 

Lydia rolled her eyes and pecked him on the nose with a quick kiss. 

"I'm going to make myself a sandwich for dinner," she disentangled herself and stood.

"I'm gonna go eat some rats," he disappeared in a long wave down the hall.

"Gross, have a blast."

By the time she'd finished her dinner and was the first chapter of a recently borrowed library book, he slunk back into the room and onto the sofa.

"How was dinner?" She didn't look up from the page.

"Eh," he coiled in what she now thought of as a snake shrug. "Almost caught the neighbor's cat, but the old bat saw me and started screaming, scared the furry bastard off."

She tapped a finger to the page to hold her place while she glared at him.

"I'm fuckin' with ya, I wasn't gonna eat the damn cat. Just bored, is all." He rolled over in a very un-snake-like manner, and wriggled his way into her lap. "Wanna fool around?"

"Phallic as you are, this might be a little too kinky for me," she went back to the book.

"Is it the cold-blooded thing?"

"It's the total-absence-of-opposable-thumbs thing."

He huffed and wiggled but didn't try to shred her clothing, so she called that a win. After a minute of him being quietly petulant, she turned on the television. They spent most of the evening like that, her reading and him watching TV through literally slit eyes, sucking up her body heat. Finally she yawned, and shifted under him.

"I'm tired. Want to come to bed and see if you're human in the morning?" She ran a hand along a curve of scales.

He flicked a striped tongue and glared unconvincingly.

"Human adjacent," she amended, which made him smile as it always did.

"You mind carrying me upstairs?" He sounded a bit embarrassed. Lydia just scooped him up and headed to the bedroom like each step wasn't over two hundred pounds on her poor feet.

She brushed her teeth while he explored the four poster bed and its railings, falling onto the mattress with a shout when one of the curtains he had trusted his weight on ripped. She crawled into bed and looked pointedly at the torn drape.

"I'll fix that," he immediately said. 

She took advantage of his moldable shape by scooting to the center of the bed and stretching out like a starfish. He, in turn, took advantage of the rest of the bed by sliding under the covers and twisting around her like a half-living net.

+++

The first time she woke up from a muffled thump, which had her upright in bed even in the dark.

"S fine," Betelgeuse's voice was tired and in her ear. "Just fell off the bed a bit."

The coils around her didn't move, but she heard a heavy slithering. Her half-awake brain wondered how he'd fallen if he was right there pressed against her, but she slipped back into dreams before she could ask.

+++

The second time she woke up it was just before dawn, and she could tell based on the biting cold of the room.

He was wrapped around and over her, snake body as thick as her rib cage and two shivering human arms pulling her close.

"You okay?" She murmured.

He nodded, wild wiry blonde hair brushing her cheek, "It's cold."

"What even is your body temperature," she asked sarcastically. He loosened his grip and she began to move, letting her turn into him and tug blankets over them both. She threw a thigh over where his hips should have been but weren't yet and buried her face in his throat before settling. "That better?"

He nodded again, swallowed against her cheek, and slowly stopped shivering.

+++

"Lyds," the voice was quiet but something was strange about it which she couldn't immediately identify. 

Lydssssss.

Too many vocal cords, that was it. She felt her body respond to that before she consciously made sense of the thought. She hadn't heard Beej speaking from that many mouths since their wedding. Then she was awake, eyes blinking against the darkness, looking around the bedroom.

It looked like a scene from a horror movie, like something from Indiana Jones, there were probably a hundred snakes spilling off the bed, stripes dripping off the pillows, black and white and twisting up the bed posts. And there he was, the biggest of the bunch, hanging off the cross-posts of the bed like a demeted chandelier, grinning down at her.

She screamed when he launched himself down at her, because no matter who you were married to, you scream when hundreds of pounds of serpent launches itself at your face. A dozen snakes with vocal chords laughed at her, but his hands were all over her.

"Hello my warrrm human wife," Beej purred, and she was struggling to sit up to no avail. 

"I see you're a little more humanoid this morning yourself," her voice was shaky, what with the screaming.

He huffed but his hands were still pulling her clothing off, "I tried a few duplicates to see if I could and great, I can duplicate, but it's snakes all the way down. No legs any time soon," A length of serpent flipped over her stomach and pinned her, "Stop wiggling, damnit: it's hard to focus on using these oh-so-important opposable thumbs without you squirming."

"I thought snakes liked live prey…"

His eyebrows rose, and hey, he had eyebrows now, that was a comforting amount of human. Lydia grinned up at him and only struggled a little when she felt her hands tugged above her head.

"You want me to eat you up sweetheart?"

She nodded, grinning, and ground her hips up against him. He snapped his teeth in her face playfully, but she just leaned into it, tilting her head back to bare her throat. 

"You're not venomous, how dangerous can you possibly be?"

He slithered until he was settled heavily between her thighs, pressing lips to her throat, sharp knives tracing across her skin. Beej kissed and licked his way from one shoulder and once he knew she was relaxed he nipped at the thin skin stretched across her collar bones.

It was probably a mild bite, probably gentle considering things he'd done to her in the past, sometimes with pocket knives even. Really he barely even drew much blood, all things considered. Her hiss of pain wasn't unexpected, since he'd just been lulling her into blissful arousal with slow methodical kisses just seconds prior. What shocked him was her biting back.

He made a wordless noise of pain, and jerked back a few inches to look down at his lover. She was blinking up at him.

"What? Normally you like it when I bite back," she smiled and her teeth glinted wrong.

"Normally you don't draw blood," he watched her smile dissolve as she glanced at his neck, seeing a smear of blackish red. Her hands went to his throat to check on his skin while he was leaning forward to gently push apart her lips with a thumb.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" Her voice was so concerned, bless her. 

"Dead," he replied, then tried to tilt her jaw. "Need more light…"

"I bit you!"

"I started it," he jerked a hand at a cloned snake which rustled the curtains behind the bed to one side, letting some light in.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yeah," the light wasn't good. Beej glared at the snake, which managed to shrug without shoulders somehow.

"I'm so sorry!"

"It's fine," he leaned up to drag the curtains part way open with his right hand, while the left tipped her head up toward the window. Yep. That was a full set of razor sharp teeth. And her pupils were looking a little slit in the bright light of day.

"No, lord, Beej, I am so so sorry!"

Then he noticed the almost tears. Her eyes weren't wet, not yet, just shimmering, and he felt awful for not noticing it in the dark. 

"Hey," he dropped the curtain and crowded closer into her space, holding her chin still. "Hey now, it's fine. I'm fine."

She wiggled a little, like she was going to bolt from the bed, like she wasn't listening. 

"Lydia," his voice was low. "Hey, no, come on now. Lydia. I'm fiiiiine," and he rolled against her, still half serpent but sporting a sizable hardon for her if he did have to say so himself.

She blinked up at him, he had her attention. 

"You have fangs," he said. 

She licked her teeth then nodded.

"It's incredibly hot," he confessed.

"Why do I have fangs, Beej?" she didn't seem too concerned about that bit. 

"Why can I bleed when you bite me? Bleed over from the living-slash-dead thing," he shrugged, enjoying the ability to do that properly now that he had both clavicles and shoulder blades again.

She raised an eyebrow, then after a beat smiled with sharp sharp sharp teeth at him. He definitely made a noise, pretty undignified he was guessing. 

"My fangs are a good thing, is what you're saying," she wrapped a leg around him.

"They so very much are, babes."

"And that bite I gave you hurt," she said, and he was about to interrupt when she went on. "But you don't mind..?"

He couldn't look away from where her tongue was tracing along the tips of her upper teeth.

"Nope, don't mind, do not mind, couldn't be paid to mind. Mind isn't a thing I do, if you know what I mean. In fact, you might say I actually sort of liked-" 

He was rambling and he knew it, so he was a little glad that she cut him off by pushing herself up on one arm and using the leverage of the leg around him to switch their positions. To be fair he let her, considering he was still human only from the waist up and 30 yards of snake past that.

"You know, honestly, I feel amazing," she ground her hips against his, and he thanked whatever powers that be for her. "I feel… Powerful! Is this what you feel like?"

"When I have juice, yeah," he nodded up at her, watching as she gyrated slowly above him, hands clinging to her skin as she moved.

He tried to sit up, was halfway upright with not an inconsiderable amount of momentum thanks to the weight of scaled coils he was moving, when she simply gave him a shove the landed him flat on the mattress. He'd been about to tie her up to the bedpost with wraps of snakey constriction, and now he was blinking up at the canopy instead. His brain did the quick panicked calculus of a man with centuries of self preservation screaming in one tiny human hindbrain and he finally determined that she wasn't a threat and, yes, he could definitely take her out if he tried. His breathing stuttered but he calmed it before she could notice.

"Oh wow," Lydia was grinning when she leaned back down into his field of vision. She ground against him, and he felt the slick slide of her rubbing against his dick, "Seems like you liked that quite a bit, husband of mine."

His mind was preparing a long winded denial, but he just nodded.

She leaned up past him, her chest pressed to his face for a moment. He chased a nipple with his mouth and was thoroughly surprised when Lydia caught his hands and tied them to the bedpost and held on to his wrists. His teeth snapped at open air where her breast had just been.

"You know, I've asked you to be good in the past, and you've blown me off."

"Is just challenging to keep my hands to myself with ya, Lyds."

"Well I'm asking again," she deadpanned. When she removed her hands from his arms he held still and smiled up at her. She waited a beat, then smiled back, and he almost didn't notice her hands sliding down his chest until hot little fingers were wrapping around his dick so softly and he might have tugged at the ropes on his wrist a little before he realized it. 

Lydia watched his face through her lashes, doe eyed and red lipped and suddenly seemed to be moving very slowly. Her hands slid up and down languidly, silk and heat and soft skin, on thumb brushing gently under the head of his cock every few strokes.

He apparently didn't know what to say, couldn't find the words, just worked his jaw soundlessly for a long minute while she watched him. Then she slid backwards, legs slipping against scales, and lowered her head to trace her tongue along after her thumb. The bed shook under them.

"Oh, I see," she purred, then mouthed gently at a vein running along the underside of his length, and he clung to the rope between his hands until he felt the soft pain of his fingernails bending past the quick. Lydia watched him, her gaze dark now and almost predatory.

"Lyds, doll, love- fuck don't stop-" He'd found his voice again.

And just like that she stilled.

"Stop what, Beej? I'm going to need you to be specific."

"The thing, with your tongue and-" he stuttered when she repeated the action. "That, yep!"

He couldn't help but roll his hips, and felt teeth graze him in reply and oh god, her razor sharp little shark teeth shouldn't do it for him but god they did.   
“Don't be bad,” she mouthed the words against him again.  
“Yes ma’am.” 

And that must have worked for her in turn, because she looked up at him with an absolutely ravenous expression, and bobbed her head down until she could swallow around the head of his cock.

"Jesus fuckin Christ!" His hands had not moved, damnit.

Lydia pulled herself upright, "Say you're gonna behave yourself."

"I'm gonna behave myself, ma'am," he tacked on the last word a second late and was rewarded with a twist of Lydia's hand and-

"Good," she crawled up until she was kissing him, moving her hips, and gods it was hard to keep his hands still. She reached down and rolled her hips, rubbing the head of his cock against her entrance, and just when he was about to beg, promise anything, when she sank down in one long movement, her nails scratching at his chest.

"Fuck," and he realized they'd both said it.

She kept up her slow pace, which was driving him insane. More insane. Insaner. He figured he'd started pretty far over the line into insanity, so he didn't have a lot of wiggle room. She would send him right over the edge, and would she please, god he'd jump for her, and-

He realized he'd been talking out loud, and Lydia laughed, like chimes, with all of her pointy teeth flashing. Her pace was slow and methodical, her thighs had to be on fire from it and with that thought and he felt himself flex his own, and he had thighs which was an interesting fact he was ignoring for the time being in favor of trying to grind up into her shamelessly. After an eternity of watching her move and testing the rope which he'd worried his fingernails right through the fibers, and while Lydia rocked on top of him in a wave of heat and gorgeous, Beej twisted the rope off of his wrists subtly-

His arms were pinned, and Lydia's sawtooth grin was inches from his face as she purred, "Don't-"

"Be bad, I won't, this is me being-"

"Good?" She flicked a forked tongue in his face and he felt something between a shiver and a shudder.

"Good," he managed to get the word out to her face, meeting the slit pupils of her eyes and not blinking. It was challenging to meet her gaze when she slid his hands down to her hips, her fingertips on the back of his own, and pressed down, let him hold on for dear fuckin life and she gave him the barest hint of traction and control.

Then she moved, with her needle-sharp teeth bared, and Betel found himself doing math and stuttering the names of long dead constellations, and gasping her name and everything went white.

+++

When Lydia woke up the alarm clock next to the bed was missing. She leaned off the mattress and saw the clock on the floor, red numbers upside down and it reading shortly after noon.

"Beej," nothing moved next to her, but she heard a half snore. She flopped back down to the bed and tried again. "Beej. BJ. Betel."

There was some movement then another snore.

"Are you human Beej?" Lydia wriggled her foot around the mattress until she felt half-way skin and kicked, "Human lookin at least?"

Her leg was kicked back, and after a moment she heard sheets rustle. The window curtain was tugged aside.

"Guess I am, yeah. You still have fangs?"

Lydia rolled over into the light from the window and grinned at her husband.  
"Nope," Betel leaned in and poked her teeth. She snapped at his finger. "You're back to standard Lydia."

"Admit it, you liked the teeth."

"Made the prospect of a blowjob a little scary."

"You like scary," she sat up and kissed him as she rolled off the bed. Lydia rummaged through a drawer for her favorite shirt, then paused, turned to look at him. "Why was I all, uh, monster-ish last night?"

"Dunnow," Betel stood, and stretched, and looked ridiculous and human all naked in the noon light. She suppressed the urge to smile fondly at him, if only because he'd notice and take some kind of offence. She got dressed while he picked through a pile of his discarded clothing on the floor, until he finally spoke. "Did you hate it?"

"Why would I hate it?" She glared down at her inside-out shirt and took it off to try again.

"Just the kinda thing that might freak a breather out," he sniffed at a shirt, shrugged, and pulled it on.

"Do you think I'm still a breather?" Lydia turned as she tugged her now right-side-out shirt on, and watched him. While he thought about it, she wondered if she cared.

"No," he finally said. "I'm a little alive and you're, uh. You're a little dead."

"Okay," she shrugged, and pulled a semi-clean sweatshirt out of his hands. He let her.

"It's just a headstart on the afterlife, if ya think about it."

"Really, it's okay," Lydia pulled on the sweatshirt then shrugged and tugged at the sleeves. "If I can turn into a snake now I'll be halfway to poltergeist by the time we die. I bet we can threaten Juno into all sorts of ridiculous crap."

Betelgeuse blinked for a moment then smiled. It was just as gentle and fond a look as she had wanted to give him earlier, and coming from him it seemed unexpectedly gentle. 

"Are you okay?" She poked him gently in the chest.

"Yeah."

"Super, well I'm gonna go make pancakes," Lydia kissed him on the nose then turned away.

"I'm gonna go eat more rats."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, well that chapter was written in like May and not finished until today. Sorry?
> 
> I don't have any more planned on this one, so I am indeed going to mark this as complete for the time being! It's been a weird learning experience writing this one, and man, so much porn. I get that it might not have been a ton by other writers standards, but MAN, my goodness, I'm not writing sex for at least a year. 
> 
> That's definitely a lie.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and commenting: it's been awesome being in this community!


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